


if i could get to sleep (i would have slept by now)

by plinys



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-07 21:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20982518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “Eds?”“I’m fine,” he shouts back.Even though he’s not.





	if i could get to sleep (i would have slept by now)

**Author's Note:**

> for my bad things happen bingo card and the "hidden scar" square

He doesn’t look in the mirror.

Pointedly avoids his own gaze at all costs.

As if that will change things. 

It doesn’t.

He knows what his therapist would say if she heard that he was still doing this, the concerned look that would fall over her features, the suggestion that he find some closure and a way to move beyond his  _ accident _ .

Because that was the official story.

A car accident. 

Not a knife to the face.

Not the speared claw of a shapeshifting demon clown from outer space stuck through the chest. 

Not - 

“Eds?”

“I’m fine,” he shouts back.

Even though he’s not.

Even though he’ll never be fine again.

Adds, “Don’t call me that,” for good measure. 

Eddie’s hands shake as he lowers them to grip tight to the edge of the bathroom counter top, finally raising his eyes to the mirror, avoiding his own gaze and instead drawn to the harsh red scar bisecting his chest.

The others all say that he should take this as proof of his survival, as a sign of his strength, but all Eddie can see when he looks in the fact that they almost lost because he didn’t believe enough. They don’t blame him. They killed It in the end. 

But every time Eddie looks in the mirror he can’t help but feel the harsh reminder of his own failure.

An ugly scar across his chest, cutting him in half, proof that even though they defeated It, even though they saved that little town in Maine, that the damage would always be there. 

He used to wonder at the scar on his hand, confused about what it was from, the memories no longer there to offer him an explanation. Eddie almost wishes that were now. That he could look at the scar across his chest and not know what it was from. 

At least then he might have been able to have a moment of peace. 

He hadn’t felt peace in a long time.

He was trying.

Fuck they were all trying. 

But he had felt off from the moment he woke up in that hospital. The thing was waking up in the hospital, that had been almost worse than being stabbed, his anxiety had made it so hard to even be thankful of the healing process. Instead his mind have ran at a thousand miles a minute thinking of how the doctors could have messed it all up, made him worse, or what other disease were just down the hall… 

Spreading through the air vents and… 

“No, no, no,” Eddie mutters softly to himself, “Not again, please.” 

They had bandaged him up. 

Said that his recovery was a miracle.

That he was lucky to be alive. 

He didn’t feel lucky.

Not always.

Not when he was alone with nothing but his thoughts for company. 

Nothing but - 

“I’m here. Eddie, babe, I’m right here.” 

He hadn’t even noticed the sound of the bathroom door opening, but it had, somehow, and Richie was there. He wonders how Richie knew that he was seconds away from a panic attack, seconds away from spiraling again. 

How Richie always seems to know. 

Instinctively Eddie flinches back from Richie’s hands, from his attempt at comfort. He feels bad the second he catches Richie’s hurt look in the mirror, a look Richie tries to play off a moment later.

Neither of them are good at this.

This whole emotional recovery thing. 

But fuck Eddie didn’t know where else to go.

And when he woke up Richie was the one there.

The one who had stayed and waited by his bedside for days straight. 

And who had confessed when he had thought that Eddie was asleep that he had loved him since they were kids and that he would do anything to keep him safe.

This weird codependent  _ friendship _ that they had, both of them always seconds from falling apart, always drawn towards the other for comfort and protection. 

More than  _ friendship _ .

Because friends don’t look at each other like this.

Friends don’t find comfort in each other’s beds, and in each other’s bodies when the nightmares are too strong too ignore. 

Friends don’t - 

“Eddie, let me in,” Richie says, softly. “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.” 

Understanding.

The only one that can understand. 

But Eddie can’t put it into words.

The panic that is always there just under the surface. 

“Help me,” Eddie says, the words a small whisper. 

“Anything,” Richie offers. 

Too easily.

Too eagerly.

Richie gives his love away all too willingly. 

Eddie’s not certain he deserves that.

But fuck, if he doesn’t  _ want  _ it. 

“I just need new bandages,” Eddie says. “This shouldn’t be so fucking hard, but I just… I can’t…”

They both know that he doesn’t need the bandages anymore.

That he hasn’t for the while. 

But it is a small comfort.

A way to hide away the hurt.

To pretend that everything is normal, and that nothing bad has ever happened to them, just for a little bit.

“Yeah, I’ve got you.” 

Sometimes.

That’s enough. 

  
  
  



End file.
